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Getaway – Cairngorms and Stonehaven

Early October (I just started my new job!), and probably the last visit from Germany this year: My Dad came by with his wife Dagmar. Just a few days but still we wanted to do a nice little trip. Didn’t take too long for us the decide where to go after Tobias and Rike visited earlier in September and showed us some nice pictures from their trip to Royal Deeside and Dunnottar Castle on the east coast.

And since neither Max nor I had been there before …

The first stop though was Loch Leven in Perth and Kinross with it’s pretty cool Castle Island in the middle of the loch where Mary Stuart once had been held prisoner for about a year.

Then we drove on into the Cairngorms National Park, enjoyed colourful autumn forests and southernly Highlands. The little village of Ballater was the base for our one night stop. This turned out to be a really good choice – we actually saw The Queen just a few yards from our B&B!! No fuss, no police, no screaming masses. Just us and two Range Rover, in the first of which Elizabeth II was being chauffeured to visit her guards (they are being stationed in Ballater during the Queen’s stay in Balmoral Castle which is just 8 miles away).

We all turned a bit crazy after that incident. So after visiting the Royal Lochnagar Distillery the next morning we even managed to find a nice viewpoint to take a peak at Balmoral Castle.
After that we were off to Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle. The castle itself lies upon a tiny peninsula just off the coast, connected by a small strip of land only. Pretty amazing sight.